Specifications, Pricing and Availability

Corsair released a number of Force GT drives that differ by capacity size. We know of at least two different configurations for the 240GB capacity size and rumor has it the Force 3 with asynchronous flash in the 240GB capacity size also use the 32 chip design as well now. At this time Force GTs are sold in 60GB, 90GB, 120GB, 180GB, 240GB and 480GB capacity sizes.

I'd say that by this time all of the older 3/4 PCB design Force GT 240GB models are sold and everyone with stock has the new 32 chip model. On the outside you can't tell which model you have until you update the firmware. The special 240GB model with 32 chips has a code of XXXXX and you use this special designation when choosing what flash to use when updating your firmware in the Corsair update tool.

The published specifications didn't change, at least not publicly. Since SSD manufacturers only publish peak performance, there really wasn't anything to change. SSDs are three dimensional, but rarely advertised with average and minimum performance. The 32 chips design increases the minimum performance thus it also increases the average performance. With firmware 5.0.3 the performance over time is also increased since TRIM is working again, but this is universal for all SandForce SATA III SSDs and not unique to the Force GT or GS.

Firmware 5.0.3 made a bit of a stir when we managed to get our hands on it to verify that TRIM would one day return to SandForce based SSDs. Corsair was the first company to put 5.0.3 in our hands and the second company to release it, just moments after Kingston. If I were buying a new SSD today, I would want a product with working TRIM since it affects long term performance. At the time of writing only three companies have released 5.0.3 for SandForce SSDs and they are Kingston, Corsair and SuperSSpeed. OCZ Technology never fell into the 5.0.1/5.0.2 trap so you are fine with them as well.

Since the 240GB capacity size is the special one we are only going to focus on it today. Corsair gives this model a three year warranty and includes a desktop adapter bracket, screws and paper manual. Newegg has the Force GT 240GB drive listed at just $189.99, but there is also a mail in rebate worth $20 back. So, your final cost after all is said and done is $169.99.

I had to do a double take because this is a 240GB drive with 256GB of NAND flash in total. SSDs have really dropped in price over the last six months.